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Perhaps this will lead to CPUs with large L1 caches specifically for supercomputing tasks, who knows...

Even discounting price concerns, L1 caches can only increase a certain amount. As the capacity increases, so does the search time for the data, until you find yourself with access times equivalent to the next level down the cache heirarchy, thus negating use of L1. L1 needs to be/quite/ fast for it to be worthwhile.

With any pool of memory, there is some limit to latency and throughput. Thus, the more processing elements you throw at the problem the more they compete for this resource.

Now, if you can separate this memory into discrete pools associated with each processing element, you have less contention (locally) hence the possibility of lower latency and higher throughput (locally).

If you can design your algorithms such that multiple writers (and hopefully readers) to the same location happen infrequently, then you have a net win, despite higher costs addressing foreign memory.

BBC News reports that the UK is acknowledging video games as a "key component of modern culture" by opening the National Videogame Archive inside the National Media Museum.
"'The National Videogame Archive is an important resource for preserving elements of our national cultural heritage,' said Dr Newman. 'It's not just about cartridges and consoles, it's also about video game culture, the ways in which people actually play them. Unlike film and music, it's very difficult to walk into a retail store and walk out with a bunch of games from the 1970's,' said Dr Newman. He feels that games should be archived in the same way that music, books and film are preserved, as we often use them as markers in our culture and history."
There's a similar archive at the University of Texas at Austin. What games would you put on display?

MTV's Multiplayer blog reports on a company about to start offering a service that will allow players to compete in matches and tournaments over their PS2, PS3, or Xbox 360 with real money as a prize. Doing so will, of course, require entry fees, but the contests are set up and opted into by the players themselves. Quoting:
"To prevent cheating, the company has access to the game data and promises a knowledgeable in-house customer support team. There's also a reputation and feedback system, which Levy compared to eBay, that will allow gamers to make informed decisions about who they're playing against. ... [Company co-founder Billy Levy] ultimately thinks World Gaming will open up the field for gamers who want to make money from games but can't make it to live competitions due to the expense or having to take time off from work or school.

teslar (666) writes "The Spiegel tells us (in German), that as a result of Vodafone's court order, T-Mobile is now selling the iPhone unlocked and without a contract at a bargain price of 999 Euros — 600 Euros more than it costs on contract. People who have bought their iPhone on or after the 19th of November can have it be unlocked for free. However, the deal is only temporary until the legal situation is clear — T-Mobile is appealing the decision and is threatening to sue Vodafone for damages."

Dave Crossland writes "One Laptop Per Child is running its "Give One Get One" (G1G1) sale for North Americans — only 6 days left! — and one of the most widely touted innovations in the XO laptop is the mesh networking which is integrated into all the applications. Since people buying XOs in the G1G1 scheme will only get ONE, it was announced on the sugar mailing today that "for G1G1, there is a Jabber server preconfigured. When you have internet access, [the mesh features] will "Just Work". The Neighborhood screen does show all those on that server currently.""Link to Original Source

Our review of existing econometric studies suggests that P2P file-sharing tends to decrease music purchasing. However, we find the opposite, namely that P2P file-sharing tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing. Among Canadians who engage in P2P file-sharing, our results suggest that for every 12 P2P downloaded songs, music purchases increase by 0.44 CDs. That is, downloading the equivalent of approximately one CD increases purchasing by about half of a CD.

The study was paid for by Public Works and Government Services Canada. Details of the contract, methodology and the original data files from the study may be found here."

mytrip (940886) writes "Google faces a federal patent infringement lawsuit by Northeastern University over technology used in its core Web search system, according to legal papers filed last week.

The complaint was filed on November 6 in Marshall, in the Eastern District of Texas — the U.S. court with a history of decisions that are highly favorable to plaintiffs in patent cases — but the case only came to light over the weekend.

The plaintiffs are Boston-based Northeastern University and Jarg, a start-up founded by a Northeastern University professor that is the exclusive licensee of search technology patented in 1997, a year before Google was incorporated.

The case centers on U.S. patent No. 5,694,593, titled "Distributed Computer Database System and Method," which was invented by Kenneth Baclawski, an associate professor in Northeastern's computer science department.

Baclawski is co-founder of Waltham, Mass.-based Jarg, which was incorporated in 1998. He first published his method of searching and retrieving information from large, distributed databases in 1994, according to court documents."Link to Original Source

Techie Coward (666) writes "Industry Canada has released a study regarding the effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchases. The study concludes that P2P file-sharing does not have an overall positive or negative effect on CD sales. Additionaly, the study finds that among those who do download, those who download more purchase more CDs, and that the price of CDs has no overall effect on CD sales."

Gamasutra reports that Take-Two Entertainment, Rockstar's publisher, has confirmed the existence of uncensored Manhunt 2 versions available online. They defend themselves, in their initial statement, by pointing out you need a modded PSP in order to play the purposefully-hidden content. Meanwhile, the game news site also notes that Take-Two/Rockstar hasn't done a very good job of giving credit where credit is due when it comes to the development of their ultra-violent title. "Jurie Horneman, who was one of the producers on the title before Rockstar Vienna was closed and development on the game was moved to Rockstar London, where it was completed, commented in a detailed weblog post that he '...intends to correct an inaccuracy in the game's credits, namely the over 55 missing Rockstar Vienna employees who worked on the game from January 2004 until the studio was closed down on May 11th 2006.'"Update: 11/02 19:52 GMT by Z:An ESRB investigation has cleared Rockstar of involvement with the hacked AO version of the game. IE: The AO content is not an element on the PSP disc. Title of post changed to reflect that.